I am extremely curious and interested in gathering what users on here think my upcoming winter will turn out like, so I've created this thread for poll votes and posting of thoughts. I split the winter into two halves based on the fact that most people from the winter thread seem to think the colder conditions will be in the first half of winter. So if you could cast your votes and feel free to post your thoughts, that would be appreciated!

BTW I just voted average on everything as to not skew the results but so I can see the results automatically when I load the thread.

EDIT: I accidentally posted this in the main US Weather section, feel free to move it to the right place. Sorry for the mistake.

With October nearly over fall temperatures so far have been very close to the new 1981-2010 means, although these are almost two degrees warmer than the 1971-200 normals for my area. Still it's also been slightly cooler than last fall. However upcoming trends are starting to concern me. The models mostly show a tendancy for ridging in the East the first half of November. Looking at the 16-day, there are no signs that the NAO is getting ready to tank by November 15. It's been mostly in a rather stubborn neutral/positive state this fall, which is not of direct concern to me since I've seen that -NAO falls actually often reverse to +NAO come winter, so not seeing a -NAO in Sept and Oct doesn't discourage me. Still, in line with what predictions have been implying, I hope that a week or two from now I'll see the NAO forecasts plunging for the end of November that will allow cold air to gain its stronghold over the east for at least the early part of the winter. That's what the general consensus has been; I'd like to see signs of it coming to fruition.

I fear that if the pattern can't establish a cold regime in November or December for me, that's going to do it for the whole winter, even though there are a minority of outlooks that actually show the warmer temperatures coming first, but that's not what the majority of forecasts or analogs suggest.

When do you think the NAO index will descend into at least a weakly negative phase, if you think it will?

It's looking pretty good for the Ohio Valley by Mid December. The NAO/AO looks like it'll plummet quite a bit by then. Usually in situations like this, a -PNA regime last for at least a month, then the -NAO/AO feature becomes dominant just as long or even for an additional 2 weeks.

It's looking pretty good for the Ohio Valley by Mid December. The NAO/AO looks like it'll plummet quite a bit by then. Usually in situations like this, a -PNA regime last for at least a month, then the -NAO/AO feature becomes dominant just as long or even for an additional 2 weeks.

Thanks for the encouraging remarks, that's also been what I've been seeing on the general thread recently (mid December).

However my question regards who did the most recent very mild vote and if so was it just a spam to spite me? I'm getting the feeling that's where these votes are coming from, what do you think?

This is counter-intuitive to me...but hey I'm in California...what do Idee know? :|

My thinking is a large intrusion of cold air Mid-January to early February and that means frozen GL's and greatly reduced snowfall...but these are guesses with no 'met' back-up so I am going out on limbs...

I figure colder air is going to lower snowfall amounts in the 2nd half...but the poll says other wise ...

Idee rant # 86

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"Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature. And that is because, in the last analysis, we ourselves are part of nature and therefore part of the mystery that we are trying to solve." - Max Planck